


When We Meet Again

by violet_daydreams



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: It's mostly Byleth yearning, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:53:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violet_daydreams/pseuds/violet_daydreams
Summary: There are things to keep in mind when Byleth meets him again for the first time. Even if time hadn't moved forward for him, five years have passed for everyone else. It's inevitable that things will be different, all he can do is brace himself.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/My Unit | Byleth
Comments: 3
Kudos: 54





	When We Meet Again

There are things to keep in mind when you meet him again for the first time, Byleth thinks. 

For one, you do not look like yourself. 

Light green eyes and bright sea foam hair do betray any sense of anonymity he might have had. But at a glance, he is no longer quite himself. His hair cascades down his back, tangled and rife with leaves and twigs and mud. The price of floating down a river in a coma for five years, he supposes, no hair cuts. And he has no interest in taking a blade to his own hair. He’s never cut his hair on his own, he can’t guarantee it’ll look decent or even. And the muck in his hair will certainly make it that much harder. Maybe he should take a bath here and now. Make a better second first impression. 

Secondly, you are still in the same clothes from the Battle of Garreg Mach. 

They are just are awful as his hair, torn in places from battle and slicked in grime. He lifts a sleeve up to his nose and gags as he makes his uphill trek. Nasty. He needs a real bath. Byleth wants a bath so damn bad. He also wants new shoes because these five inch heels are _not_ making this uphill climb easier. Why the _fuck_ is the monastery situated so high up? It should be a crime to put Byleth through this when he’s stumbling through the woods like a graceless baby deer. He just needs to regain his footing after five years, but it’s still a pain. After 30 minutes, Byleth falls on his ass and tears the shoes from his feet to carry them up under his arms for the rest of the journey. If he’s lucky, he’ll get there before nightfall. 

Third, you have no idea what you’re walking into even if you think you know who you’ll see.

Five years must really change a person even if it’s done nothing more than make Byleth a dirty mess. But his students have _lived_ for these five years. And he has a hunch about which of his students would become a ghost story, really there’s only two that come to mind. Given Dimitri’s _very_ fragile mental state five years ago, it could easily be him. The other option is Felix, _maybe_. If any other student were to become the sort to slice down enemies with ease, undiscovered, it’d probably be him. Byleth isn’t sure which option he’d prefer. 

Well, sort of.

He knows who he _wants_ to see. He wants it to be Dimitri because, honestly, he couldn’t stand being Felix’s teacher. Dimitri had always been an excellent student, his favorite really. He remembers kind blue eyes with such fondness that his still heart _aches_. Byleth wants to see him again, but he knows if it is Dimitri up there it will not be the kindhearted boy that would make his heart race if it could beat. 

He doesn’t want to see how Dimitri has changed if he’s become little more than a ghost hiding in the dilapidated monastery. The idea hurts his heart, makes him yearn to _run_ up this dumb hill and see him now if it’s him. But maybe he’s hopeful that it’s even one of his students to begin with. Maybe it’s some bandit staking claim of a broken down home. Byleth wants the place to feel like home again. Maybe one day it can be, maybe the war is over, maybe things are fine again. Maybe he can go home again, find a place where he belongs. All he wants is to belong somewhere again. 

Fourth, you need to get rid of those _feelings_ that surge at the thought of Dimitri.

A lot can happen in five years. And Byleth probably shouldn’t have felt like this for him back then either. He’s not sure what it is he feels, but it burns in his stomach. The way his heart swelled when they shared tea alone together. Or how handsome Dimitri looked with flush across his cheeks. The way he held himself when he trained, how he held himself back in a fight for the sake of his peers. Though the thought of the brute strength Dimitri had _did_ things to him that he couldn’t quite understand. At first, Byleth had merely thought he was showing a blatant favoritism towards him, but it didn’t feel like that was quite it.

It was more than just favoring him because Byleth cares so fucking much. Dimitri is why he’s alive right now, why he’s made it this far. After the death of his father, it was Dimitri that helped put the ground back beneath his feet once everything had begun to collapse around him. That gave him a reason to live. He lives for Dimitri, for his other students. Caring for them is all he has left now.

If they’re even left after the battle of Garreg Mach. After any battles that could have ensued in the years that followed. 

Fifth, you need to stop thinking so hard on food.

The ghost student is definitely the priority. But his stomach _growls_ every few steps, his bottomless pit of an appetite gnawing at him. Hopefully there’s food ( _meat,_ he really fucking wants meat, holy shit) at the monastery when he returns. He isn’t looking forward to hunting for his own meal if not. His legs are wobbly, will the rest of his body remember the feel of a sword in his hands? Will he be able to move with grace? Will he be able to hunt his own food? Really, all this did was make him hungrier. Sothis be damned, he will _feast_ the moment he gets a chance.

Sixth, you have to remember it’s okay to mourn.

While five years have passed for the rest of the world, no time has passed for Byleth. His father’s death is just as fresh as if it had happened mere months ago. When he gets the chance, he will visit Jeralt’s grave and if he cries, it’s okay. Maybe the Heavens above are real and Jeralt is at peace with Byleth’s mother. Maybe Jeralt is watching over him, watching his disaster son stumble around, a graceless ugly duckling under all of this goddamn mud. 

And if Rhea is gone, it will be okay to mourn her too. Because aside from Dimitri, she had helped the second most with his grief. She had allowed him to follow his father’s killer. She had held him gently in her arms and sang to him as he slept, giving him the closest thing to maternal affection he had ever known. It’s okay to remember her like a mother. It’s okay to miss her. It’s okay to be tired of loss. In months, Byleth had lost so much. Too much.

Seventh, the monastery is actually pretty big and you used to get lost years back. 

He puts his shoes back on as he wanders the grounds, hours of walking lost in thoughts have made him a much more elegant deer. How did he never learned the layout of the monastery? Well, he’s not very sure. And the last few months had been a depressive haze. Maybe that was it, the depression. Sorrow was such a new cloudy emotion and it had hit him like bricks in what felt like a never ending spiral. He was recovering, yes, but it’s difficult to finish recovering after getting magically slammed off a cliff side and knocked into a magic coma. 

He takes his time getting around the monastery, searches the dining hall and the pantry for food. There isn’t much in the stores, but Byleth picks at it and it does enough to calm his angry belly. He’ll find more later if he must, but the scraps are better than nothing. 

Byleth turns over every corner in search of his ghost student, taking his time to shed muddy clothes in his dorm room for something cleaner. No time for a bath yet, he supposes, but he’s a little drier now and the perfumes in his room take away some of the river smell. A little better suited for a reunion as he picks leaves and snapped twigs from his hair as he wanders the once sacred grounds. 

He stops in his tracks as he notices a trail of bodies, his stomach sinking. He knows he needs to follow to where the trail leads. With careful steps, eyes down to make sure he doesn’t slip in blood, he follows.

Eight, you have to be prepared for anything.

His footsteps are the only thing that reverberate through empty halls. Up a staircase littered with Imperial corpses. He kneels down near the bottom, dares to take a look at one of the bodies. Brutally skewered men are all that could possibly meet him. Byleth knows who he’ll find here. He isn’t sure he’s ready for it. Or maybe he’s too desperate, too eager to see the man he cares so deeply for.

He wipes his bloody hand off on the pants of one of the soldiers to rid it of blood and continues his ascent. His gentle footfalls echo and he feels utterly alone in these halls. He hopes Dimitri is up these stairs, that he doesn’t need to broaden his search. Though, there is something that pains him about the very idea of following felled bodies to his old student’s whereabouts. His old student that hates bloodshed and murder, that once feared Byleth was just an empty emotionless monster due to his blank face, will be at the end.

He does not know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t this.

It isn’t a man hunched against the wall, only hair and hand exposed, dwarfed by thick heavy furs. Even from a distance, Byleth can tell the grip on his lance is tight, that he is still on the offensive. Anything could happen right now. He steels himself for the worst, to be attacked or killed as he walks closer. This has to be Dimitri, even if every part of Byleth begs his intuition to be wrong.

Where there is dirt matted into Byleth’s hair, there is blood in Dimitri’s. Blood and dirt on his face. It makes him feel a little less underdressed for their reunion. There is so much to take in, too much. Like what had happened to his eye? How skilled was he to kill all of these men on his own? Was he truly still on his own? 

But it didn’t seem right to bombard Dimitri with questions. Instead, he extends a wordless hand to his most treasured student, most trusted companion. But Dimitri hardly regards him, doesn’t look to meet Byleth’s eyes. Merely murmurs to himself and uses the lance to hoist himself to his feet. It makes something inside of Byleth shatter, he takes a step back and does little to hide the frown that forms on his face.

Dimitri barely pays him mind, merely threatens him when he tries to convey he’s alive and huffs off like there’s something better to do in this empty home. Byleth isn’t entirely sure that Dimitri is convinced of his livelihood, but that could have something to do with his whole “I hear the voices of the dead” thing. Why would he just believe that Byleth, presumed dead for many years, would appear before him in the flesh. He would not let Byleth close enough to touch him, close enough to show him he is _real_. 

Ninth, it’s okay to indulge him, just a little.

Dimitri apparently wants to go commit homicide. It’s a band of thieves and Byleth doesn’t think they deserve to die, but he supposes they don’t deserve to live either. Not the best _welcome_ party, but at least they’re both still alive in some matter or another. And Dimitri seems more receptive to his presence once bodies start to fall by Byleth’s swift hands. He is a little out of practice, but he wields his sword with ease as he falls back into the flow of battle. 

If Dimitri is willing to believe in the long haired demon beside him, perhaps he can get through to him yet. It’s all he desires, everything he wants. Because _every_ word that has left his mouth since Byleth’s return has made his hair stand on end. It wouldn’t serve to make him angry, but Byleth desires nothing more than to grab him by the shoulders and ask him what the _fuck_ is wrong with him. 

Tenth, you owe Dimitri the same he offered to you.

He had once told Byleth, “Know that your enemies are my enemies. I will all that I can to help you find justice. There is no one else that I can… my strength is yours alone. I will fight as you command… I will kill anyone should you ask it of me.” 

And while it had meant _so_ much to him at the time, it had fanned the flames of a vengeance that Byleth knew to be… unhealthy looking back. And incredibly unsatisfying given that he hadn’t taken Kronya’s life with his own blade. But unhealthy or not, did he not owe Dimitri the same? Should he not help to pave a path in which Dimitri can take the Adrestian Emperor’s head? Or would it be wiser to cut this off now? To focus more on his attempts to snap Dimitri to his senses. If Byleth's rage had not been quelled so long ago would he be as Dimitri is now? Would he be blind and angry? 

No matter what, Dimitri believes that the Emperor must die. And he may be right considering that this war must end. Byleth can think of no faster way to end the strife, to reduce the number of people they must slaughter. Maybe they won’t do it Dimitri’s way, won’t kill everyone in their path on a mad dash for Edelgard’s head in Enbarr. But it will be done, he will be brought before her, Byleth will swear it on his life. No matter what it takes, for Dimitri’s sake, they will win. And perhaps, afterwards, he will finally rest. 

Finally, you know that you will always meet him again.

No matter what, Byleth will never abandon him again. He will stand by his side, will try to renew his life and spirit. If Dimitri gave him a reason to live, Byleth must try to do the same. He is in his debt for the kindness he had been shown years ago. Things will change. One day Dimitri will smile at him again. Will talk to him without snapping, will say more than “go away” or growling threats. One day Byleth will teach him that he isn’t a monster. Or he will let them be monsters together. If Dimitri must be a monster then the Ashen Demon will no longer deny his own status as one.

He watches Dimitri from the back of the cathedral and his heart aches more than it has ever ached before. Sothis may not be able to listen, may not be able to talk to him anymore, but still he prays in the back pews. This feeling in his chest, he fears it. Fears that it will haunt him, haunt his choices. He doesn’t understand it, he’s only seen it briefly in others. What is he to do but follow Dimitri to the end?

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! I might make a second part of this after the point where Dimitri comes back to his senses. Maybe from Dimitri's perspective?
> 
> My twitter is @starlit_violets and my tumblr is starlit-violets  
> If you ever wanna talk hmu!


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